Motorola's next Moto Mod may be a VR headset

As reported, the smartphone leaked in the month of January, Moto X5, is being canceled as part of a layoff exercise by the company.

Moto, the iconic mobile phone brand that Lenovo acquired from Google in 2014 for $2.91 billion, is not shaping up to be the success the Chinese brand would have hope for.

There seems to be a lot of turmoil going on at Motorola's Chicago headquarters, as rumors began swirling that over 50% of its engineering workforce had gotten laid off a few days ago.

I think we will see the Moto Z ditch the mods entirely in the years to come, and become Motorola's proper flagship brand.

Motorola has announced three new Moto Mods this year. The report says this means products such as gamepad and health tracker mods will get the cut. The official statement also added that the move that Lenovo announced past year will continue to happen "over the next few quarters" impacting less than 2 percent of its workforce across the globe. Their expected last day of work is April 6, 2018. Replying to a question by an Indiegogo backer about the impact of the layoff exercise on the Mods team, Chen while saying he can not give details "publicly" said the "Mods and Z team in Moto was irreversibly impacted". This comes nearly a day after prolific leaker Evan Blass posted images about Motorola's unreleased "Virtual Viewer" mod which will be more like a Daydream headset then a mode. According to a developer of one of the third party Moto Mods the layoffs will have a huge impact on the Moto Z and Moto Mod team. It added that the week's employment reductions were a continuation of that process and they are reducing their Motorola operations in Chicago, but that did not impact half of their workforce and their Moto Z family would continue. It is worth noting a VR headset is now being planned, however, so Moto may not be done with eccentric Mods just yet.